Continuing this week’s marathon guest post session, today we have a Three Stooges moment contribution from my buddy Brad Shorr. What can I say about a fellow who volunteered to pick me up at Chicago’s O’Hare airport and drive me all the way downtown for SOBCon ’08? I mean, is this guy whacko or what? What a guy!

Brad’s passion is sales, and he is an expert in the B2B sales and marketing world (not to mention quite the word nerd!) He is currently on a mission to help businesses take advantage of the medium of blogging (and helping those of us who typically run screaming into the night at the mere mention of the word “sales”).

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My Slapstick Moment on the Slopes

by Brad Shorr

First of all, thank you, Robert, for the opportunity to write a guest post on your blog. I always enjoy coming here for your stories and lively conversation. I feel a lot of pressure subbing for you!

Yet another story about falling down mountains

You’d think that after not one, but two stories about falling down mountains, I’d be plum out. Au contraire, I have a third! This one makes me chuckle even now, because it’s such a funny visual image, the kind of thing that belongs in a screwball comedy film or an I Love Lucy episode.

I’m in high school, at the top of an icy slope with my younger brother, a far superior skier who I had allowed to goad me into tackling a run much harder than anything I could handle. I remember the hollow, chilling feeling of being utterly trapped. Staring down the throat this impossibly steep ski run, I wondered, How the heck am I going to get out of here? I couldn’t even imagine myself back at the bottom. No way to go forward, no way to go back. (Well, not exactly, I could have taken the lift down, but I would rather have died of frostbite than suffer that humiliation.)

My brother, nonchalantly skiing around me in circles, gave me a pep talk. To this day, I’m not sure whether he sincerely thought I could handle the slope or was just eager to see some entertainment. At any rate and for whatever reason, I reluctantly pushed off and began my descent into Three Stooges hell.

Before you could say “Ski Patrol!”, I was nearly out of control, falling into the hands of gravity. Fortunately, the run was wide enough for me to sway/lurch/careen back and forth instead of rocketing off into the trees as I did in an earlier story. This time, I found myself heading straight down the center of the run, where I could now see that it would gently level out, allowing me to come to a sweet, slow stop.

This would have been good news, except for one thing. There was a ski lesson going on right at the base. Two instructors, on skis of course, were facing a line of about 12 young students, also on skis. Between the instructors and the students was a gap of about six or eight feet.

It was directly into this gap that I was heading.

All of a sudden, as the instructors were barking out instructions to the class, I came barreling right through the middle, screaming “LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT!” You could hear the clackclackclackclackclack as my right ski skied over the skis of the students. I was going too fast to see their expressions, but I could imagine. What kind of an idiot skis through the middle of a ski class? Fortunately none of them died of fright or came after me wielding a ski pole.

Talk about your slapstick moment

Sometimes life does imitate art, doesn’t? Have you ever been in a situation that really, truly belongs in a comedy show? Those are the stories that are great to tell in the bar, at the bowling alley, or playing Jarts in the backyard. If you have a slapstick moment to share, I don’t know about you, but I’d love to hear it. I’ll bet we could all use something to take the edge off the economic news, huh?
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Brad Shorr, president of Word Sell, Inc., is a marketing consultant and writer who lives near Chicago, Illinois, USA. He helps companies strengthen their online presence, engage in social media marketing, create and manage business blogs, and write compelling Web content.